Strangers When We Meet
by hallospacegirl
Summary: A young woman accuses Spock of killing her sister and captures him to seek revenge. However, they accidentally time travel back to the year 2004 and now have to work together to stay alive. SpockOFC
1. Default Chapter

DISCLAIMER: What? You mean I _don't _own all of Star Trek, including Spock, tribbles, and all merchandising stock options? Well… damn.

CATEGORIES: Action/Adventure/Angst/Romance, Spock/OFC

SUMMARY: A young woman accuses Spock of killing her sister and captures him to seek revenge. However, they accidentally time travel back to the year 2004 and now have to work together to stay alive.

STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET

By: Hallospacegirl

CHAPTER ONE

The fist flew at Commander Spock in a blur of speed, smashing into his left cheekbone and sending electrifying fireworks bursting into his vision. The pain of the punch had barely registered when he was grabbed on the shoulder by a fierce hand that yanked him out of his bed and onto his feet. He tumbled forward in the darkness, his legs tripping over the pillow that had fallen to the floor; the hand set him straight with a brusque jerk. Now the agony exploded over his face in earnest and he hissed sharply through clenched teeth, only to taste hot coppery blood pulsing into his mouth and down his throat. A molar had been knocked loose, he realized. He found the lost molar with his tongue and spat it out, hearing it land muffledly on the carpet of his quarters. 

                "Good evening, Mr. Spock; I hope I didn't wake you?" a contralto voice strained into his ear from behind him. A arm tightened around his neck and the hand that had grasped his shoulder now moved to capture his torso. His back pressed against a compact, human figure, distinctly shorter than him and undeniably female.

                He twisted his body in the woman's ruthless grip so that he could reach the base of her neck, but his fingers were batted aside, and suddenly the business end of a phaser was jammed at his temple, and the arm around his neck tightened enough to choke him. "Try the nerve pinch one more time and I'll shoot your brains from here to the other side of the ship," the woman gritted, "so don't move."

                Spock assessed the situation quickly in his mind. The woman was holding him immobile, crushing his windpipe, and in possession of at least one weapon, while his only protection was the boots, trousers, and black sleeveless undershirt he was wearing. He considered calling for help, but most would be asleep at this hour, and response would be slow. Too slow compared to a phaser firing at point blank. He decided it was rational to do as she commanded. He didn't move.

                After a few seconds the woman loosened her hold at his throat by a fraction, and Spock caught his breath. "Who are you, how did you get aboard the _Enterprise_, and why do you want to kill me?"

                "Who said I wanted to kill you?"

                "It is the most logical assumption, since you are holding a phaser to my head --"

                She choked him again, squeezing off his words. "Logical and emotionless to the last, Mr. Spock. Aren't you even afraid that you're going to die?"

                "Being afraid will not assist me from this situation," Spock replied raspily when she permitted him to breathe.

                The woman let out a short laugh devoid of amusement. "Okay, you have a point. But your logic was wrong about my wanting to kill you, because I don't. At least if you hold still and don't try any damn Vulcan tricks. Right now I only want you to come with me."

                "Where to?"

                "My ship. I've set the computer to automatically beam us up about now. Then we'll fly to my home planet, where you'll have some explaining to do to my mother."

                "I do not understand. I do not know you, nor your mother."

                "You will," the woman said shortly.

                A moment later, an orange glow filled the room as a transporter beam enveloped them in its light. "Say goodbye to the _Enterprise_, Mr. Spock," the woman whispered. And then they were gone.

-------------

                The dim interior of the woman's ship, Spock saw, was small and haphazardly crammed, as though someone had taken parts from a junkyard and pieced together a ship from scratch. The transporter in which he stood was of Romulan design and was crammed into a niche in the wall, while the majority of the computers were standard, though outdated, Klingon issue. It was only from the peeling letters on a low iron bar that he identified the ship to be a personal Earth fighter fifty or sixty years old.

                "She's not the prettiest ship," the woman said grimly from behind him. She still held the phaser firmly to his temple. "But I can assure you, Mr. Spock, that the _Esmeralda _is one of the fastest and can outrun the _Enterprise_ many times over."

                Spock's lip lifted marginally at the irony of the name. "May I suggest re-naming this -- eclectic -- ship the _Quasimodo_, as the word means 'half-formed' in --"  
                "Oh, shut _up_!" she snapped, digging the phaser barrel into his skull. "Quasimodo was a greedy, ungrateful fool and hypocrite, and if you read the damn book you'll see that!"

                Spock raised a thin eyebrow. "A fascinating observation."

                "Males," she responded, "no matter of what species or home planet, and no matter how handsome or grotesque, are all the same. Even Vulcans. That's why I'm taking no chances with you."

                The phaser slid from his temple to the back of his head and her arm left his neck. "Now hands up and walk forward _slowly _until you reach the seat in front of you," she ordered. "If you try to fight, you _will_ die, Mr. Spock."

                He raised his hands and obeyed her, stepping out of the tiny niche that housed the transporter and walking through the narrow, jumbled passageway until he reached the passenger seat in what seemed to be the cockpit of the _Esmeralda_. She jammed him into it; he heard her kneel and fumble through some objects on the ground, and then his hands were grabbed and wrenched behind the back of the seat. A length of rough, thick rope cut into his bare skin as she began tying his wrists and forearms together.

                "Vulcans are famous for their ability to escape," the woman said, knotting the rope with painful jerks, "but I think this should hold you for the time of our journey. And if it doesn't, the phaser should."

                Spock resisted the urge to move his uncomfortably bound hands; she would interpret the action as hostile. "I do not wish to escape. I only wish to know why I am here and what it is you want."

                "I'm going to tell you," she said, giving the knot one last pull. She leapt lightly to her feet and stepped in front of him. 

                She was indeed small, grazing only five feet tall, and looked young enough to be twenty to twenty-five standard years old. Her face was of a mixture of at least two different Earth races. Her eyes were light hazel, her skin warmly tan, and her lips full. Her dark brown, wavy hair was tied crudely back in a convenient rather than aesthetic fashion. 

                Most Earth men would find this woman intriguing and appealing to look at, Spock observed distantly. But the phaser, the belt of assorted weaponry hanging from her narrow waist, and the promise of additional weaponry hidden inside the numerous pockets of her hunter green trousers immediately wiped his mind clean of the weak, human thought.

                He noticed that her features were registering surprise.

                "So it's true that Vulcans have green blood," she was saying, looking at his mouth.

                "You knocked out a tooth," Spock reminded her.

                The young woman's gaze hardened and darted up to meet his. "Did I? Good," she bit out. She turned to sit in the captain's seat beside him and pressed a few buttons on the control panel; he saw the crimson blood streaking the knuckles of her slightly shivering right hand.

                "You are hurt," he said simply. 

                She suddenly froze and glared at him with a shocked and furious expression as if he had just found her with her clothes off. "No, Mr. Spock, _I'm_ not!" And she balled her bloodied hand up into a fist and punched him in the abdomen. "_You_ are! Don't forget who's in charge here!"

                The punch was not as hard as the one she had given his left cheek, but it knocked the breath from his lungs. He inhaled slowly though his nose before he was able to speak again. "I was making an observation."

                "Next time, keep your observations to yourself," she snarled, slamming her phaser into its holster at her hip. "No one wants to hear your infinite Vulcan wisdom and logic."

                "Was that a compliment?"

                She looked as though she was about to punch him again, but her hand was shivering even worse and her eyes were wet, and Spock realized that she showing pain. This time, he knew it logical to refrain from speaking further on the issue, and "keep his observations to himself," as she had said, to save both himself and his highly illogical abductor from further injury.

                The woman spun back to the control panel and wiped her knuckles on the the front of her scant white shirt. "Computer, set course for Wuthrin."

                The _Esmeralda _shook, clattering loudly, and the image of the stars on the viewscreen blurred with motion as the ship picked up speed.

                "We'll be at Wuthrin in half an hour at warp four," the woman said.

                "From the rattle of the engine, I do not believe this ship can survive past warp one."

                The woman let out an exasperated, disbelieving sigh and glanced sidelong at him as she eased the accelerator forward. "Do you _like_ getting hurt, Mr. Spock? You're under_ my_ command, and you're not going anywhere, regardless of whether we go at warp one or ten!"

                "No, I do not like your punching me," Spock answered, "and I know I am not going anywhere, but my comment was logical in the situation. Do _you _like the very real possibility of this ship falling into ten thousand pieces at warp two?"

                "I don't appreciate your insults. I'm sure your parents never told you, if you can't say anything nice, then --"

                "-- don't say anything at all," he finished. "It is a quote from an old Earth animated motion picture called _Bambi. _I most highly suggest we fly below warp one."

                She gaped at him, silent and wide-eyed. "Yeah," she said at last, softly. And her hand steadily pulled the accelerator in the reverse direction. "We'll go at warp point eight."

                "A logical decision," he agreed.

                "Praising me will not change the fact that I hate you, Mr. Spock."

                An eyebrow shot up at the unexpected remark. "Why do say so? Hate is an emotion and therefore not a fact. Also, it's illogical for you to hate me, because we are hardly more than strangers, and I have done nothing to warrant your hatred."

                The woman did not reply as she locked the accelerator in place with a press of a button; once the ship steadied and ceased its noises she swiveled the seat to face him and crossed her arms over her chest. "I'll tell you why I hate you and why you're here. You killed my sister."

                He frowned. "I do not remember doing such a thing."

                "I didn't expect you to," she said bitterly, shaking her head and giving a grieved grimace. "Two years ago she was only a cadet under your command. Her name was Lavinia. She was so beautiful, like a goddess, and she was so kind to everyone, and everyone loved her. But you didn't understand any of that, of course. You're a Vulcan."

                "I remember Lavinia. She was the most resourceful of the cadets. She died on the planet Artico."

                "Because of you!" the woman shouted. Her eyes glistened with tears, but this time it was more from emotional pain than physical. "She died because of you! I know what happened! You and five cadets were in a cave collecting plant specimens frozen in the snow when a bizzard struck and the temperature shot all the way down below zero. Lavinia got stuck in the cave and all that snow on top of her was interfering with the transporters so _Enterprise _couldn't beam her up. The rest of the cadets wanted to dig her back out but the temperature was dropping too fast. You told them it was _not logical _to go save her. Yes, that's what you said, Mr. Spock! And she heard you and she _agreed _with you, because that's just the way Lavinia was! And all of you beamed out of there without even trying to do otherwise, and she stayed on Artico and died -- because of _you_."

                "Lavinia was right; it was not logical to save her, because the temperature was dropping at eight point two degrees a minute, and the fastest all of us could remove her from the cave was in seven and a half minutes, by which time it would have been too cold for the remaining human cadets to live. Lavinia made the best decision under the circumstances."

                The woman's tears had fallen from her eyes and were streaking down her face. She hastily swiped them away. "Damn it, Spock! Damn your logic! I loved Lavinia more than anyone in the world and she's dead now! Don't you know what love is?"

                "Love is an emotion, and we Vulcans do not perceive emotions as --"

                "-- logical," she spat, treating the word like a profanity. "Yes, I know that. I don't care what you feel or don't feel. I want my revenge. My mother wants her revenge. Once we arrive at Wuthrin my mother wants to spit on you in the manner of the ultimate insult and torture you so you die the most painful death."

                "Do you think killing me in your act of revenge will bring your sister back from the dead?"

                She shrugged angrily. "No. But she's dead and it hurts me! Call emotion a curse."

                "Emotion is not a curse. It is simply --"

                "I get it!" she interrupted venomously. "I get it! Can you stop saying the word 'logical' for _one_ damn minute?"

                The request sounded reasonable to him. With a nod, Spock affirmed, "I believe I can."

                The woman gave him a glare that reminded him of searing lasers, and scowling, turned to the control panel and punched several buttons. "I've just sent a message to my mother. She'll be expecting us within a Wuthrin day."

                "I look forward to negotiating peacefully with your mother over the issue of my impending death. Perhaps she'll see the uselessness of killing me and instead settle for a talk with the _Enterprise, _or with the Federation courts."

                The woman scoffed. "No chance. My mother's had it with talking and negotiating. Decades of marriage to a complete and total _fucker_ can do that to someone, you know."

                "By 'fucker' I assume you mean Lavinia's and your father," Spock deduced, recognizing the archaic English word for reproduction.

                "Yes," the woman said tightly. "I hate all men, regardless of whether they're related to me or not."

                "I do not understand what sexual intercourse, a biological act, and hatred, an emotion, have in common."

                "You -- you can't be serious!"

                "I am."

                "Oh, God." She held up her hands and buried her face in them. "A couple more hours stuck here with you. If I don't kill you right now, I think I'm going to go crazy."

                He was going to ask her how insanity related to his murder, but the human half of him held his tongue against it, and for once he listened to instinct. He asked instead, "What is your name? You have not yet told me."

                The woman rubbed her reddish eyes and slid her palms from her face. "Ophelia. I assist my mother, who is a -- bounty hunter or assassin, you could say. So was my asshole of a father, but he betrayed us and got himself killed at the hands of the United Federation while we were fleeing Earth. Apparently someone had tipped off the officials about us, so we had to escape to Wuthrin."

                "And Lavinia? Was she a bounty hunter?"

                Ophelia lowered her head. "No," she said in a subdued and weary voice. "She was kind. She wanted to believe... in the goodness of people, whatever that means. She wanted to travel peacefully in space with the _Enterprise _on scientific missions in hopes of improving the galaxy_. _But..." Her head snapped up with renewed animosity. "A mistake. If I had known about her death, and if I had known about you, we would have never let her go. I would have killed you right then."

                "Not a logical act," Spock objected.

                "I thought you weren't going to say that word!"

                He tilted his head an inch to the side and smiled, as much as his Vulcan half would allow. "One minute and thirty two seconds has passed since you have made your request, Ophelia. I had been able to say the word 'logical' for the past thirty two seconds."

                Ophelia's face flushed scarlet and her mouth opened in indignation, and at that moment she seemed to him very young and petulant, like a child. "How _dare_ you, you green blooded Vulcan! How dare you! Don't forget I could kill you! I really could!"

                And as if in response, the _Esmeralda _gave a jolting lurch as a loud explosion sounded and smoke hissed in from the back corner of the cockpit. An alarm began to wail; red spinning lights twirled frantically above and a recorded metallic monotone repeated a syllable in a foreign language.

                "We've been shot at! Computer, show damage on viewscreen!" Ophelia shouted, already activating shields the instant an image of the burning section of the ship flickered across the screen. "Computer, twenty percent power to repair stern, twenty to return fire, auto-aim, and sixty to bring into warp three! There's a Klingon warship behind us!"

                Spock could not deny that he found her instantaneous reaction to danger most impressive, but he calculated that the damage on the screen had but a ten percent chance of surviving warp three. "Computer, negative," he said in Vulcan. "Cancel warp, lock in command, respond only to my voice."

                "What the hell do you think you're doing? What did you say?" Ophelia shrieked as another shot jostled the ship. She coughed and batted smoke away from her eyes. "Computer, warp three!"

                A string of foreign words blipped back from the tinny speakers.

                "You can't warp? Why not! Computer, warp three, for God's sakes!"

                The response was repeated; Ophelia spun to Spock in fury. "How did you do that? We're going to die if we don't go into warp!"

                "I can't explain now. Untie me and let me manually steer."

                "The hell I will! Get my ship back to normal!"

                This time, Spock did not hold his feeling of impatience in check. With a twist, he freed himself from the knot that held his hands behind his back and rushed to the controls. He grabbed the steering stick and pulled it to the left, just as a fiery missile grazed the starboard. "Computer, put enemy on viewscreen." He saw a winged, birdlike Klingon fighter through the static, and it was rapidly gaining.

                Ophelia ran up beside him, shoving him roughly to the cluttered ground. "That was an inescapable Mobius knot! How did you do it?" she panted, taking control of the steer. 

                "You must have forgotten that Vulcans invented what humans call the Mobius knot, Ophelia." He jumped to his feet, only to be thrown down again as a missile hit home.

                "The why didn't you get out in the first place?"

                "I would have angered you and risked your hurting yourself and me even more."

                "Damn you to hell, Spock -- oh, God, it's less than a mile away! We _have_ to warp! We _can't_ dodge it!"

                "We have a ten percent chance --"

                "I don't want to hear your logic! I've done this before!" She reached into a hatch above her and yanked on a handful of wires. The wires snapped, showering sparks into the cockpit, and Ophelia immediately slammed the accelerator forward with both hands. Then she forced down the lock with her elbow and fell back into her seat as the _Esmeralda_ surged ahead at rapidly gathering warp speed. "I disconnected the computer lock system. My trusty _Esmeralda _will handle it from here," she called over the desperate squealing of the engine. The pride was unmistakable in her satisfied tone.

                "What did you warp to?" Spock demanded, clambering into the shaking passenger seat.

                "Warp ten. We'll take a loop around the Earth's Sun and lose them that way."

                "This ship has a two percent chance of surviving warp ten, Ophelia! Not to mention your path is the trajectory for time travel --"

                "We're at warp seven and still alive!" She grinned at him. "I'll take my chances with this ship!"

                "Stop this recklessness! You do not understand!"

                "Are you afraid, Mr. Spock?"

                "Your action will incinerate both of us!"

                "Warp eight point three..."

                The sun, previously a dot on the viewscreen, now grew into a fiery yellow fireball. Ophelia leaned forward and took the steering stick in an iron grip. "Warp nine point two. We're almost there..." She gradually eased the ship to starboard, following the curve of the Sun. "Nine point eight!"

                Spock decided the most logical thing to do right now was to sit and not interfere with the woman; he wondered whether she had been telling the truth when she had said she would go crazy if she didn't kill him.

                "Warp ten!"

                The sun filled every fiber of his being like a blinding colossus of flame, and he realized his death was now inevitable. 

-------------

                Spock awoke to the sound of quiet machinery humming. He blinked open his eyes; he was staring up at the low, rusty ceiling of a spaceship. This was the _Esmeralda,_ he remembered. He was still alive and uninjured except for the dull ache at his left cheek, the ship was still intact, more or less, and if he was not mistaken, he and his abductor had just successfully accomplished time travel in this rattling bucket of discarded junkyard parts. Interesting. No -- this feat deserved to be called truly fascinating.

                "Computer, give full status report," he said. "Report in English."

                The voice warbled as it rattled on in a Klingon accent, "Bow, seventy-two percent damage. Stern, ninety-eight percent damage, starboard side..."

                The numbers were enough for Spock to command, "Computer, shut off all engines and run on lowest power mode," before the report had finished.

                "Affirmative," the computer beeped and all the screens fizzled to black.

                The silence that followed, devoid of any ominous rattling, was encouraging.

                Fascinating indeed.

                Spock peered at the woman slumped into the seat beside him. Ophelia was limply lying with her head tilted back, her body covered in dust and smoke, and her face smeared with blood that pulsed steadily from a gash above her eye. He eased himself to a standing position, walked to her, and leaned over her unmoving figure.

                She was still breathing, but shallowly.

                "Ophelia."

                She didn't answer.

                He moved to give her body a gentle shake, only to change his mind when he thought of the possibility of damaging a possibly broken spine.

                "Ophelia," he tried once more in vain. He placed a light pressure on her wound with his fingertips to stop the bleeding; suddenly, he knew what he had to do in order to communicate with her. Heaving a deep sigh of concentration, he put his other hand on her head and shut his eyes.

                The mind meld with Ophelia was surprisingly simple to open; most beings with whom he had melded had erected mental walls he had struggled to climb past. Humans were usually the worst; even when they willingly agreed with their words to meld minds, their subconscious barriers, their attempts to hide lies and secrets, and their mountains of denial were often impossible to surpass. And on the occasion that he did, their facades and false projections of what they wished he see would completely block out their true minds.

                Ophelia was different; he saw only a clear channel that he easily slid into, and now he was standing inside her mind, unobstructed.

                But where was _she_? Where was Ophelia?

                The space was dark and endless. He realized this black eternity was the place where her numerous walls had once stood. He probed forward, searching. It was quiet and unfeeling and neither hot nor cold in the perfect nothingness.

                Then he became aware of her _katra_, a tiny, flesh colored speck in the distance. He projected himself to her in an instant and saw that she was completely nude and curled in a fetal position. She was crying softly. And she did not know that he was here.

                _Ophelia._

She murmured something he didn't hear.

                _I am Spock, Ophelia. _

A spark of recognition emanated from her being, a flash of golden light. _Spock?_

                _I need to see if your body is injured. _He coursed his awareness through her, through every limb and joint. Nothing was broken or cried out in pain, save for the bruised knuckles of her right hand, her bleeding forehead, and a few superficial scratches of the skin. _Ophelia, you are unhurt. Wake up, _he urged.

                To his puzzlement, she didn't. She only drew herself tighter in and continued weeping.

                Spock strengthened the mind meld, searching deeper than he had ever gone.

                _Ophelia, wake up_, he called as he dived._ Wake up, wake up, wake _--

                A burst of pure agony rippled through him. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before. He screamed silently, images exploding like bombs through every fiber of him: a beautiful girl with long black hair and a gruff, angry face of a heavy-set man and a frown of a stern old woman and the yawning isolation of space.

                The smiling girl was Lavinia; he suddenly felt an overwhelming wrenching in his heart that he knew could only be called love. And the wrenching grew worse and more painful and he felt it twisting into grief as he saw her face turn blue and frozen and dead amidst the planet of ice.

                The man -- father. Hatred boiled up like bile. And suddenly the echoes of physical pain and of violation and of alcohol breaths and shocking words thundered through him and he couldn't take it anymore and ran on.

                The woman stopped his path, thick arms crossing in front of her massive chest. _Mother... oh, Mother, what can I do to make you love me?_ Orders rolled forth from her tongue, along with words of disappointment and hope, and suddenly he was stuffed inside a tiny ship with a slip of paper in his hand. The only word in his brain was to kill; he determinedly revved up the ship and flew into the depths of space.

                And space was so _cold_! He shivered and wrapped his arms about himself, but there was no blanket to keep him warm. All around him was the darkness. The universe was so infinite and he was all alone with his thoughts -- what if he were the only sentient being in the entire universe? Fear and panic welled up inside of him, but there was nowhere to go, no grassy mountaintop to which he could run, nor busy city in which he could see and touch his fellow man and feel secure that he was not alone.

                And then.... he saw himself. Spock. He saw himself in her mind. And he saw Ophelia's body uncurl from her ball and slowly stretch out and cease crying.

                A thousand emotions flickered on and off like fireflies. Curiosity, uncertainty, fear, hatred, attachment, fury, amusement, companionship. He saw his ears -- strange, pointed things they were -- and he smiled at his words of Vulcan naiveté, and he burned with anger as he knew that _this_ was the bastard who had killed Lavinia! He deserved to die!

                Reluctance. If he died, there would be no more companionship, no more conversations in space, and once more there would be the blackness of solitary existence --

                _Spock! _Ophelia shouted.__

He gasped. She was there. She sensed him reading her thoughts. And she was angry.

                _Spock, what are you doing! Get out of my mind! _She jumped at him, her body morphing into the body of a red wolf, sprinting after him and clawing at him with razor nails. Suddenly, walls began shooting up from the ground and pushing him out, tossing his mind like a rag doll out of its depths.

                _Out! Out! Out! You can't be here! Get out!_

_                Ophelia, wait!_

But a thousand sets of iron doors had already closed and the mind meld snapped like a dry twig.

                Spock's fingers flew from her forehead at though he had been electrocuted. He stared into a pair of accusing hazel eyes, and staggered backwards, steadying himself at the edge of the control panel. His entire body was damp and wracked with shivers and his face felt wet from not only perspiration, but tears.

                "What did you do?" came Ophelia's voice. "What kind of drugs did you inject into me?"

                He licked his dry lips and answered, slowly, "I performed a Vulcan mind meld to see... to see if you were injured from... the ship. You are not."

                "A mind meld? It did not feel that way to me!"

                "I'm -- sorry," he said.

                "You're sorry? Don't lie, Spock. Regret is an emotion, and Vulcans like you don't feel any emotion."

                "Vulcans are incapable of lying," he admitted raggedly.

                "Then what did you see! Tell me what you saw!"

                He swallowed; there was a lump in his throat. "I saw your sister," he said. "I felt your pain, and it became my pain. I saw your father. He violated you in the worst way a man could violate a woman. I felt the hatred run through me like a knife. I saw your mother. She demands so much of you; she is the only person left whom you believe could love you. And... I saw myself. You are curious about me and are attracted to me. You don't want to kill me."

                "Oh God, just stop!" Ophelia turned her head away. "You're not supposed to know all this! No one is supposed to know all this! I'm supposed to kill you -- no, I _want_ to kill you. You're just a stranger to me, Spock. I don't care about you."

                "We are strangers no more, I suppose," Spock replied. "I know all of your memories, up until this moment."

                She fixed him with a furious, wet glare. "Thank you for the information."

                "You're... welcome." he said, hesitantly, no longer sure if he understood her outside of the mind meld. "Or did you employ a use of sarcasm?"

                Ophelia only stared at him, scowling a little. Her eyes were bloodshot from the tears, and she seemed to be grudgingly searching his face for an answer to a question. Her gaze ran over him, and he remembered through the mind meld that she found him physically and sexually attractive -- his eyes and mouth and the way his shirt clung to his perspiring body -- though she tried her best to deny it.

                "I see that you..." Spock began, then stopped. This was not something he should say.

                Her eyes darkened ominously as they focused directly on him. "Yes? I what?"

                "I... do not think I should tell you. You said for me to keep my observations to myself."

                "Oh, good. I'm glad you're learning. Next time, you don't even have to say _anything_."

                "I will try."

                "Perfect." Ophelia stretched, and pulled herself up to the controls. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to continue my work. And you are still my prisoner and I still intend to kill you --"

                "But you don't."

                "Yes, I do!"

                "No, you don't."

                "I do now!"

                That was entirely possible in the realm of rationality. He nodded, finding it not pragmatic to prod her further.

                Ophelia resumed, "Anyway, I still intend to kill you, no matter what you think, and _I_ am the one with the phaser, not you. And everything is still going to plan. We have lost the Klingon ship and we will get back on track to Wuthrin at this very moment."

                "I'm afraid that's impossible," Spock said.

                "Why? Is it something you read in your mind meld?" she sneered scornfully, then addressed the ship, "Computer, turn on full power, warm up engines."

                The _Esmeralda_ roared and clattered to life.

                "The reason we can't meet your mother at Wuthrin is not because of the mind meld, but because of what you did," Spock explained, once the noise had quieted to a bearable level. "You pushed this ship to warp ten and took a spin around the Sun. We have traveled back in time. By my calculations, we're now approximately between Earth years two thousand, and two thousand thirty, _Anno Domini_. Your mother is not born yet." 

                The young woman, her hand loosely enclosed around the accelerator, had ceased to move. "What," she whispered after several moments, "did you say, Spock?"

                "We have traveled back in time."

                "You lie," she protested, brokenly. "I thought that loop-around-the-Sun trick was a warning to keep students from going past warp seven or getting too close to a star..."

                "No, it is real."

                She spun to him frantically, her eyes as round as saucers. "Well, what do we do? How are we going to get back to our time! We have to repeat what we just did!"

                "Absolutely not! This ship cannot stand another warp at level ten!" Spock rose, grabbed her by the slim shoulders, and removed her from the captain's seat. She treaded back limply, appearing too stunned to protest, as he stood at the controls and scrutinized the statistics in front of him. "Computer, show map of surrounding space on viewscreen."

                The snowy screen crackled dubiously with static, and a dark map speckled with multicolored dots gradually flickered into clarity. He spied a green dot near the center and pointed to it with his forefinger. "We are still within the Sun's solar system. This is Earth in the early second millennium of modern recorded time. We will need to land and repair the _Esmeralda _with available Earth technology_._ Only then can we attempt to return to our century."

-------------

END OF CHAPTER ONE. TO BE CONTINUED.


	2. Two

DISCLAIMER: What? You mean I _don't _own all of Star Trek, including Spock, tribbles, and all merchandising stock options? Well… damn.

CATEGORIES: Action/Adventure/Angst/Romance, Spock/OFC

SUMMARY: A young woman accuses Spock of killing her sister and captures him to seek revenge. However, they accidentally time travel back to the year 2004 and now have to work together to stay alive.

STRANGERS WHEN WE MEET

By: Hallospacegirl

CHAPTER TWO

The young cadet of the United States Air Force watched the red beam on the circular radar screen spin past for what seemed to be the millionth time, and stifled a yawn. He hated this patrol job, he hated the stuffy hotness of a July afternoon, and most of all he hated the tiny observation tower with its radar screens and incessant beepings and monitoring equipment and tiny window overlooking a patch of bland, uneventful blue sky.

                The beam on the screen spun past again, and it reminded him of disco lights. This in turn reminded him of the party at Jenna's house last night, which reminded him of Jenna. She was the prettiest, not to mention richest, girl he had ever met, and she simultaneously attracted and repulsed him with her ready smile and flirtatious ways to every boy who came across her path.

                All of which meant nothing, he despairingly told himself, twirling his chair around so he could see out of the window. He wasn't going to get her regardless of what he thought of her, because he was a pathetic lump who was stationed as a lookout boy in the middle of a lonely tower, and she only seriously dated men who had real jobs -- men who actually _flew _the planes instead of sitting on their asses and monitoring them.

                If only he had actually _studied_ for those damn written tests a year ago he would have probably been flying high on the weekdays and receiving blow jobs from Jenna on the weekends -- but he hadn't. And so here he was, gazing out of the window and watching the heat ripple.

                A shrill screeching punctuated the silence and startled him from his waking dream. His heart skipped a beat and for a second he was disoriented; suddenly he realized that the sound was a warning for the appearance of an unidentified aircraft.

                Adrenalin pumping, he bolted to the radar display. Sure enough, there was a small pixilated white triangle blipping across the screen. He frantically tried to lift the plastic shield from the emergency button on the side of the desk, but his hands were trembling too hard, and it was only after the third try that he flung it off. He leaned in and prepared to press the button down.

                The alarms stopped.

                _What the hell?_

                In the silence that followed, all he could hear were his own shallow breathing and the steady beeping of the monitoring systems. The small white triangle was nowhere to be seen and the radar screen was once again calm.

                The cadet removed his hands the undisturbed emergency button, his brow creasing in confusion. How could an aircraft just disappear like that? The only explanations had to be that either the monitoring equipment was malfunctioning, or that _he_ was malfunctioning from the heat, or that his superiors had decided to test him to see if he was awake. He sincerely hoped it wasn't the last possibility, and sighing, sank back into his chair.

                And then it started again.

                The alarms wailed even louder than before, and a large white object in the shape of a flying seagull's silhouette floated onto the radar. He stared at it in disbelief, backing away from the desk as though the radar panels had suddenly grown lethal. He did not know of any plane that looked even remotely similar to the birdlike shape the radars were showing. A Russian spy plane, maybe? No way -- the first little triangle had been suspiciously fake enough -- this gigantic bird image was definitely a malfunction or a joke.

                He calmed himself and sat back down and listened to the blaring alarms, wondering when it would all be over.

                That was when he felt the rumbling and hot air at his neck. He wheeled around to face the sky outside the tiny window; coming at him was a massive scaly green -- thing -- that could hardly be called a plane, with two wings and a metal beak. It was roaring and radiating intense heat and making the tower shake like a stick hut in the middle of an earthquake.

                Okay. This was not a joke.

                The cadet slammed into the emergency button with all his weight and screamed into the microphone just as the scaly green ship skimmed across the top of the observation tower, "Emergency! UFO sighted at tower three! UFO sighted at tower three, Goddamn it! Get your fucking asses over here!"

-------------

                A quick glance at Spock proved what Ophelia had suspected about him from the beginning: that perhaps Vulcans _did_ have feelings after all. Because at this moment his straight, thin eyebrows were plunged together in a deep frown, and his lips were pressed firmly closed.

                She sighed, returning her attention to manually steering the _Esmeralda _over the crowded, metropolitan city. "I admit that wasn't the best thing to do under the circumstances. But I did _not_ want to sacrifice the computers in order to raise the cloaking shield," she said.

                "Without the cloaking shield activated, we have a ninety nine percent chance of receiving enemy fire," came the Vulcan's usual, colorless response.

                "If you're mad at me, say so."

                "I am not. I simply think your decision was irrational."

                "Which means you think I'm an idiot. Don't forget you're still my prisoner."

                "I do not think you're an idiot, and yes, I know I am still under your capture."

                She didn't know whether she wanted to slap him or fry him with the phaser, so she concentrated ahead and did neither.

                Three quarters of an hour ago they had entered Earth's atmosphere to the warning that due to the ship's low power, the _Esmeralda_ could sustain cloaking shields only if all computers were deactivated.

                Spock had directed auxiliary power to the activation of the shields, and had shut down the computers with a quick command in Vulcan. He'd then requested to manually steer the ship until they reached a suitable landing site; she had scathingly reminded him that it was _her_ ship, and had swiftly regained her position in the captain's chair by literally throwing the Vulcan out.

                Spock, after stiffly straightening his rumpled clothing, had then proceeded to recite in his deep and gravelly baritone a list of boring -- and in Ophelia's opinion, inconsequential -- facts about the Earth's current history, ecology, space travel, and aerial statistics, until she'd fallen half asleep and almost crashed the ship against a mountain.

                Logically, the Vulcan had remained silent after that.

                When they had crossed over the mountain range, which Spock had called the Sierra Nevadas, and above a region of large buildings and small individual dwellings, Ophelia had summoned the computer in frustration, commanding it to locate a landing zone at least five miles away from the eyes of prying Earth inhabitants.

                With an abrupt shout that sounded like a Vulcan curse, Spock had batted her aside, flicking off the computers and reinstating the cloaking shields at maximum.

                "Ophelia, Earthlings at this time perceive all foreign vessels as hostile. They will shoot us down," he'd said forcefully.

                "Without the computers, we won't be able to find a landing site in -- who knows how long!" she'd argued. "Less than an hour without the shields --"

                "My calculations are that the chances of finding a landing site without computer assistance in one hour is one to three, while the chances of coming under fire without shields is one to _ninety_ --"

                Ophelia had flung her hands up in defeated acquiescence.

                Now, forty-five minutes later, Spock sat forward in his seat and gestured to the outskirts of the rapidly thinning city below them. "Beyond the city is a series of hills, and even further, flat plains. We may land with little difficulty on the plains."

                Ophelia squinted ahead at the hills; they were significantly smaller than the Sierra Nevadas, but mountainous all the same. A thin ribbon of highway wound through them, continuing across the plains and into the distance. She bit her lip hesitantly. "We'll be getting most of our supplies to fix the ship in the city, right?"

                "Yes, I assume."

                "Then if we land in the fields, we'll be placing ourselves very far from the city. And those damned hills will be blocking our way." She groaned. "Is the transporter working?"

                "No, there is not enough power. We will need to fix the ship before we can operate it."

                "Then we'll have to land as close as we can to the base of those hills."

                "Doing so will increase the risk of crashing. We no longer have computer aid."

                "If we can turn off the shields and turn on the computers for one minute --"

                "The highway offers a full view of the surrounding areas. Traffic is heavy, averaging forty-seven vehicles per minute past a given point. People will see the ship."

                "Well, we'll wait until traffic isn't heavy."

                "This will only happen in the evening, but it will be dark, and most of our guidance lights, save one, have been destroyed by the Klingon --"

                "Damn it!" Ophelia screamed, hitting the front of the control panel with her fist. New pain reverberated through her shattered knuckles, and she swiftly drew her hand to her chest, nursing it with the other. She glared at Spock, whose impassive, hooded eyes gazed back below steeply angled eyebrows. The last remaining thread of reserve snapped inside of her. "Your pessimism is _not_ helping the situation, asshole!"

                He only blinked, looking a bit pensive but otherwise expressionless.

                "Listen here," she continued before he could make another scientific observation regarding her insult, "I'm trying to decide a course of action and all you can do is tell me what _can't_ happen. Who the hell do you think you are? You're not my -- my _father_, understand?"

                No. She regretted the words the instant they left her mouth. She remembered the mind meld, the distant nightmares he had drawn up within her and shared with her. With a tight shake of her head, she pushed the memories to the back of her brain and let her anger rise. "_I_ am the one making the decisions!" she snapped.

                "And I am merely giving you the statistics."

                "Your statistics are destroying every chance we have of getting out of this century alive! Why must you calculate all these statistics? Why can't you do things based on _faith_ instead of logic?"

                "Faith alone will not save us," Spock said.

                She swallowed. "Logic alone did not save my sister, Mr. Spock."

                He didn't respond for a long time. When he did, his voice was level, but strangely, Ophelia thought she could detect a hint of tension behind the controlled monotone as he said to her, "The chances of successfully landing at the base of the hill is one in ten. You can let your faith carry you from there."

                "I'm truly thankful I have your vote of confidence," she replied dryly.

                "I have enthusiastically given it to you."

                Ophelia was surprised. "Was that sarcasm? From a Vulcan?" she said, taking the steering module and maneuvering the ship downward as they rapidly approached the hills.

                "I believe it was so."

                "Fascinating..." She trailed off, their conversation quickly forgotten as she buried herself in the concentration of the landing. Now she could see that some areas below were densely packed with trees -- pines and various deciduous species, mostly -- which fanned out into clearings of low shrubbery and grass. She spied a wide patch of sparse bushes, and decelerated the ship as she steepened the angle of descent.

                She steadied her hands on the controls; the path of the _Esmeralda _needed to be as straight as possible to ensure that she didn't miss the clearing and explode into a fireball among the nearby trees. Five seconds later she gently began to ease the ship parallel to the slope of the hill. A few more seconds and she would have it...

                Pain surged through the muscles of her right hand.

                The_ Esmeralda_ pitched into a sickening nosedive. Ophelia swore, regaining her control and forcing the lever upward, just as the tips of several tall pines clawed against the underbelly of the ship with a metallic screech.

                Now the ship convulsed and shuddered noisily as it ascended spiraling into the sky. A loud hissing sound began, and a blast of heat burned steadily into her back. "Something's very wrong, Spock!"

                "The cloaking shield is breaking and the left engine has caught fire," the Vulcan replied from behind her. She darted a glance at him; he had bolted to the rear of the cockpit and was flinging open a panel in the wall as sparks and flame rained around him.

                "Don't stand next to the engine!" she shrilled. "It'll explode!"

                "I am keeping the shield and engine intact," he shouted above the crackling sparks. "Resume landing."

                 "You'll die!"

                "Resume landing!"

                She clenched her teeth and guided the ship into a wobbling trajectory. Trees flew up to meet them, but she pressed forward. About five hundred feet ahead was a grassy clearing. She began to calculate the exact distance required to land, but gave up and killed the engines anyway, letting the momentum of the flight carry them -- hopefully -- into where they needed to go.

                The _Esmeralda _met the floor of the clearing with a brutal jolt. Ophelia half expected to hear an explosion and feel the blessed oblivion of death take over, but neither happened, and now they were skidding across the clearing like riders in an old-fashioned sled car.

                The unbearable heat inside the cockpit was building. "Spock, come here!"

                "Keep watch. We will --"

                Crash.

                The ship met with the trunk of a towering oak and smashed to a stop. Ophelia was tossed forward by the sudden halt, stars exploding across her blackened vision as she hit her head against the viewscreen. Glass and metal and a thousand different materials, all painfully sharp, rained down on her in a relentless torrent. The air had been forced from her lungs and she gasped for breath, only to inhale a choking mouthful of smoke and debris that sent her doubling over in agony.

                She closed a palm over her nose and reeled away from the annihilated controls, stumbling blindly through the smoke-filled cockpit. "Spock?" she coughed. 

                A circuit fired, but there was no other answer.

                "Spock?"

                The opaque smoke was too thick for her to see past the length of her arm, but somehow she could tell that he was no longer standing at the engine panels, and her stomach lurched to her throat at the realization. "Spock? _Spock!_"

                She saw him.

                He was a dark black shape crumpled in the corner, thin and unmoving. Dust and sparks snowed upon him, hissing hotly as they met with his body, yet he remained still, remained unmoving.

                Panic welled up in her and she rushed to him and knelt by his side. He could not die now. He absolutely could not die and leave her all alone in this foreign place, all alone in this foreign time. "Spock! Wake up! Listen to me!" She reached out to his pale, serene face, bracing herself for the cold clamminess of death. His skin was warm.

                Thank God.

                Whimpering in relief, she crawled to the main entryway on her knees and pried the hatch open, dislocating it from its rusted hinges and throwing it clattering to the ground outside. Golden afternoon sunlight soaked in as the foul smoke began to billow out.

                Ophelia backpedaled to Spock. He was illuminated in the light, and now she could discern the countless green scratches, burns and cuts that covered him from head to toe. "Oh God. I'm getting you out of here. Just hang on!" She kicked the path from his prostrate figure to the open hatch clear of as much jumbled debris as she could. Then she turned back to the Vulcan and wrapped her arms around his chest from behind. His head rested between her neck and shoulder and she could hear him breathing, shallowly. She laced her fingers together tightly, dragging him to the hatch.

                She pulled him outside slowly, taking care not to aggravate his injuries on the jagged edge of the entryway. The ground of the clearing had been stripped clear of flora, due to the _Esmeralda'_s faulty landing, and the dirt was smooth and soft beneath her feet. 

                And suddenly fatigue overwhelmed her and her knees buckled and she fell back, panting. Cool moisture trickled down her cheeks in tiny rivulets; Ophelia found that she was crying.

                "Spock. Oh, Spock," she sobbed softly, not knowing why she was desperately whispering this virtual stranger's name or what she meant by it -- perhaps she simply needed to affirm her own voice. She was still holding onto him, the weight and heat of his body strangely comforting against her.

                Ophelia reminded herself that he was unconscious and probably dying. She gently moved him to the ground and curled up beside him. His face, so odd with his white skin and pencil eyebrows and large pointed ears, was calm. His steady breaths came deeper now.

                He was not dying. He was going to live.

                Somehow she knew that for a fact, as if he had told her through that mind meld of his. Sighing, she took his hand and held it firmly between hers.

                And it was only then that Ophelia saw the _Esmeralda _-- or rather, the absence of it -- in the clearing before her. She saw the ground smashed into the rough shape of a triangle, and she saw the forest and the rise of the hill beyond. A small brown owl balanced upon a scraggly tree limb and hooted a mournful song.

                So the cloaking shield was still functioning. The blasted Vulcan had managed to keep it up after all. She laughed, wearily, but broke into a strangled cry when she realized what the shield was surely hiding from her eyes: a hideous, broken wreckage that could not hope to take to the air again.

                The _Esmeralda _was dead.

                Ophelia knew that for a fact as well, and it wasn't from some damn mind meld or spooky sixth sense or so-called lovers' connection. The _Esmeralda _was a part of her and now it was gone, and a new empty chasm had been gouged into her heart.

                She distantly thought of the impossibility of ever traveling forward in time again, but she no longer cared as one phrase repeated itself with each aching heartbeat: _The _Esmeralda _is dead._

                Ophelia closed her eyes and wept.

----------------------------------

                Images silently fluttered through Spock's healing trance like photographs from a faraway past. He felt as though he were sitting in McCoy's office on the _Enterprise_, absently flipping through a tattered antique history book while waiting for a wound to close. Now his _katra_ was repairing his broken body; his mind was flipping through the book of his life.

                People and places and objects floated past him, faces of his mother and father, and of the uniformed crew of a shining silver spaceship, but there was one face that made him stop. She had large violet eyes framed by thick black lashes, and her lips were pink and full.

                Lavinia.

                It all came back to him.

-------------

                Spock feels cold to the bone now, despite the three thermal layers of his specially designed snowsuit, as he cups a gloved hand to his mouth and calls to his crew, "The blizzard is worsening and the temperature is dropping rapidly. Abandon all work and head out." His voice resounds through the interior of the cave.

                Four pairs of approaching footsteps crunch unevenly as he sees his cadets trudge toward him. They sink with every step to the shins in ice and snow. "Harker, where is Lavinia?" he asks the boy who reaches him first. There are only the four male cadets; the girl is missing.

                "She's refusing to come out now, Commander," Harker replies over the howling winds.

                "Why?"

                "She said she just discovered a living flower in the ice or something, and she wants to remove it without harming it."

                Illogical. She will die from the cold.

                "Lavinia!" he calls into the cave. Louder now: "Lavinia! I command you to abandon your post!"

                The cave shakes with the echo, rumbles.

                With shouts of warning, the four cadets scramble the remaining ten feet out of the cave until they are a safe distance away. They huddle together, unsure. Their science officer has not trained them for situations such as these.

                "Lavinia!" Spock repeats.

                Increasingly larger chunks of ice slough from the ceiling of the cave.

                And then he spies her in the darkness, running. There is a metal container in her hand and her uniform is bulky and the ground is too deep with loose snow, and she trips. She picks herself up. The metal container has fallen; she fishes in out of the snow, tucks it under her arm, and resumes in determination.

                "Let go of the specimen! It is slowing you down!"

                "This is important!"

                He begins to sprint to her, but has hardly gone two feet when he hears a call from behind him. "Commander, Captain Kirk requests that we beam up immediately," Mahoney says. "I've told the rest to prepare for beam  --"

                "No! Negative!" He stumbles out of the quaking cave, barely missing a falling icicle, waving his arms and shouting, "Do not beam! We beam up when Lavinia comes out!"

                "But Captain's orders!" Harker protests.

                "No," Spock says. He does not know why he says it; it is illogical to disobey a captain's orders.

                Suddenly, a massive, deep roar startles him. 

                "Commander Spock!" Mahoney's eyes grow wide as he stares past his shoulder. Spock spins around to see that the mouth of the cave has been sealed in an avalanche of snow. The swirling blizzard piles even more blankets of white against the bank, condensing it, compacting it.

                Lavinia is still inside.

                He calls for his cadets, leading them to the collapsed cave. Already his mind is calculating the thickness of the fallen mound of snow and the speed in which the cadets and he can dig through.

                "Lavinia!" he shouts.

                A muffled female voice, barely audible, replies from within, "I'm buried. I can't move. I can't prepare for beam."

                "We are digging you out," he assures her, and gives the order to the boys beside him.

                It is bitter cold, and their bodies no longer possess any feeling, but they dig. The exertion warms him up for the briefest of moments, until the temperature plummets in a gust of fierce snow, and then all he can sense is the frigid storm. It is now too cold; the cadets are slowing, their faces frosted stiff with ice.

                But they are almost there. At this rate they can rescue her and beam up safely within a quarter of an hour. He knows it. He is certain of it.

                And then, as if in affirmation, the boy named Dei barks out, "Commander! She's here! I have her!"

                He climbs through the snow to Dei's side, and sees that the cadet has uncovered Lavinia's hand. It is a pale, white hand that is as cold as ice when Spock reaches out to enclose it within his own. But her fingers move and jerkily tightens around his.

                "We must go faster," he says to the cadets, digging to free Lavinia's arm.

                His communicator beeps in his pocket. No, he has no time to answer! He ignores it, but it continues beeping and beeping, and finally, he plucks it out of his clothes and holds it tucked under his chin. "Spock here."

                "Kirk here." The captain's words are tinny and distorted by the storm. "Listen to me, Spock -- _get the hell out of there! _That's an order!"

                "We almost have her --"

                "Spock, I know this is the most difficult decision an officer can make, but you must prepare your men to beam _now_! They will die!"

                "I will not leave her behind, Captain."

                "Spock! It is either her, or all six of you! You _know _this! Calculate the impossibility!"

                He does. And he understands.

                They are too slow. The cold is too fast. The numbers are right. But he can't move.

                "Spock?" he hears. It is not Captain Kirk, but Lavinia. She is whispering, but somehow he hears her through the screaming storm. "Spock, leave me. It's the logical thing to do."

                "Lavinia --"

                "Go, Spock. Just go..." And her hand slips from his, limp.

                "Commander?" Harker is speaking. "We almost have her. Do you want us to --"

                "No," Spock says. He stands, swaying unsteadily in the wind. "We will leave her. Prepare to beam, everyone."

                "But there must be a way!" someone protests.

                Yes, Spock thinks in agreement, there _must_ be a way! But -- damn it -- what _is_ the way? It is too cold to reason clearly and logically! The men are already dying of hypothermia, their biological systems shutting into painless, peaceful deaths as the temperature continues its merciless descent.

                Spock clears his throat. "Abandon your work, men," he says. "Prepare to beam. This is an order."

-------------

                The image ended in his mind, flitting past like a butterfly, soon consumed by the oceans of other memories and thoughts. He drifted in semi-hypnosis, letting himself lose mental focus as his _katra _soothed and repaired the last wounds of his body. He felt his femur, fractured from bracing his leg against the _Esmeralda_'shard, burning engines, finish fusing together, and he felt the open gashes across his skin stop bleeding and fill with new epidermal cells.

                The process was almost over; his awareness was quickly condensing like mist gathering into pools of dew. And now his _katra _had fused with his mind, and Spock rose from the depths of his sea of consciousness, and gently broke the surface.

                He opened his eyes to the glittering darkness above him. He was staring up at a clear, star-speckled night sky, while below him he felt the porous soil, and around him he smelled a musky, earthy scent underlaid with the odor of burnt metal and fuel.

                Seven point two hours had elapsed since he and the young woman had crashed into the clearing, he calculated. This made the time now twelve thirty at night. He hypothesized that most of the inhabitants of the early second millennium Californian coastline would be asleep by now; the faint sounds of the occasional car rolling down the distant highway confirmed his hypothesis to be correct.

                But he could not sleep, of course. To do so at this moment would be illogical. He peered at the young woman warmly nestled and sleeping at his side, and shook her softly. "Lavinia," he whispered. "Lavinia, wake up."

                The woman frowned at the name and fidgeted almost uncomfortably against him.

                A full second passed before Spock realized his mistake. Lavinia was not the name of this woman, he remembered, but the name of her older sister who had died on Articos two years ago. It was strange that he should call her by this name, as though something from his human subconscious had dragged it out of him.

                "Ophelia," he tried again. "Ophelia, wake up."

                The woman sighed, her eyelids fluttering open. She stared at him for a moment and murmured, her voice thick with sleep, "What's happening? Who are you -- wait -- _Spock_?"

                "Yes, I am Spock."

                She froze. Then she bolted to a sitting position, gasping, her hands flying to her forehead. "Oh my God, it's true. I was hoping this would all be a bad dream."

                "It is not," was all he could think of to say.

                "So we traveled back in time? So the _Esmeralda _is really done for?" Ophelia demanded shrillingly, now jumping to her feet and glancing about her in the darkness. "Can I see it? Is the cloaking shield still on?"

                "Yes, it is," he replied, sitting. His leg and several inner organs objected to this action by resisting with pain, but the pains were dull and muted, and signaled a near recovery. He slowly stood. "The ship is in front of you, five paces. You can feel it, but the cloaking will prevent you from seeing it."

                "It's okay. I want to feel it. I want to know that it's there." She walked forward with arms stretched in front of her, until there was a small thudding sound as her hands met with the exterior of the ship. And then she was crying and splaying her arms over the invisible metal surface, her sobs carrying loudly through the quiet midnight forest. Her silhouette, precariously balanced in the center of the empty clearing, was outlined by a sliver of moonlight, and it shook with every cry and breath.

                He did not know humans could show grief over an artificial object such as a small, broken ship, and found that he could not stop watching her weep. And, stranger still, when he searched his mind as to why this was so, both his Vulcan and human halves declined to offer any answer.

                He walked to her instead. He held out his hand and laid it on her shoulder.

                Ophelia abruptly stopped crying at his touch, instantly fixing him with eyes that shone with glistening tears. "What do you want?" she hiccupped. "The ship's gone now. We can't do anything anymore."

                "We can survive, Ophelia."

                "You don't understand! My ship is broken beyond repair! We can't travel forward in time!" She stepped away from him, angrily shrugging him off. "We're stuck here forever, okay? Time travel hasn't been invented yet, and when it is, we'll be old and drooling, or _dead_."

                "Then what do you suggest we do?"

                "I don't know. I -- all I know is that this situation is completely _fucked_. All I know is that --"

                "Ophelia," he said firmly.

                "What!"

                "You said to me before that logic alone could not save lives. You also said to me that at certain times, one must not merely act on statistics, but on faith as well. I believe that this situation requires that we overlook the statistics of time travel, and base our actions on faith."

                The young woman fell silent. As she stared at him, Spock saw that her thoughts were waging a war behind her eyes, a war that abruptly ended as she growled and furiously wiped the tears from her face with the back of her forearm. "Fine. We'll do as you say. We'll leave right now," she said. "We'll leave the ship here, find the highway, and contact civilization from there."

                "This is a rational choice."

                "No, it's not. It's a fool's plan based on the useless thing known as faith, but it's better than having no plan, Spock." She continued to look at him as if in expectation, and then finally marched to him and grabbed his wrist in a tight grip. "Well, what are you waiting for? Let's go!"

                Spock held his ground as she began to pivot away.

                "_Now_ what is it?" The woman snapped, turning accusingly to him when he did not move.

                "You are going the wrong direction," he replied. "The highway is in this direction." He pointed behind him.

                Ophelia glowered in response, dropping his wrist as though it were made of acid. With an emphatic "I hate you," she stomped past him toward the route to which he had indicated. "I hate you, Spock," she repeated as she disappeared into the rustling pines. "Don't forget it, and don't forget that if we ever get out of this century alive, I _will _follow through with my plan of killing you."

                He knew better now than to correct her words. He followed her instead, and as he stepped into the motley shadows of the thickening forest, he almost felt that he was smiling.

-------------

END OF CHAPTER TWO. MORE TO COME!


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